Google goes ‘street’ with Mandela’s ex-prison

Google goes ‘street’ with Mandela’s ex-prison

South Africa’s Robben Island Museum has teamed up with internet giant Google for a virtual experience with a difference.

The museum is renowned for sharing the history of the island, which served as an apartheid-era maximum-security prison for political activists, most notably Nelson Mandela. The museum has now been included in Google’s Heritage Collection.

The island has been mapped using the Street View technology that will now offer users of Google Maps 360-degree panoramic views of the island.

Along with this, Google now also offers a virtual tour of the selected parts of the island, with sections accompanied by a video narrated by former political prisoner–turned-tour guide Vumsumzi Mcongo.

Along with the island being mapped by Google, its archival documents including letters from prisoners is also available online as part of Google’s Heritage Collection website, with an Android app also now available.

These former political prisoners give insight to their time on the island in the collection of stories, entitled ‘In Their Own Words’.

Google also takes visitors inside the cottage that Pan Africanist Congress leader Robert Sobukwe called home during his six-year stint on the island.

But amidst concerns that the initiative might actually stem visitor numbers to the island, the museum’s CEO Sibongiseni Mkhize says he’s not worried.

“Actually we’re expecting the opposite,” Mkhize said.

“The way things are today, even when people want to book hotels or visit places, they rely very much on the internet and visiting online to have an idea of what [to expect]. So we’re expecting people to do the same for Robben Island Museum.”

Google’s collaboration with Robben Island Museum should see more visitors taking the ferry to the island.

Over the last five years visitor number have increased from 249 000 paid adult visitors in 2010 to 273 000 paid adult visitors in 2014.

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